That’s very interesting. It looks like they are collecting semantic relationships between words in all languages. It would help in automatic translation and machine interpretation of human text. – LionKimbro

08-Jul-2006: I am watching ConsensusPolling? on the IcannWIki? and I am getting pretty blown away.

Some things are gelling for me a little bit. I am starting to understand that LinkLanguage is the language of the interenet, and it is our language. By ours, I mean all people who know how to speak it. I am suggesting that we think of a ConsensusPolling? strategy for creating a [[.wiki_TLD?]] that is a public service, meaning no charges for it. We start a consensus poll on how and who we need to get that.

01-Jul-2006: Don’t like the icon test I did, plan to revert back. Thinking about the potential of Footnotes over the socail map. Then mashing up something like Wiki + Google Maps type application. ClickToWiki? from any image. My “dream/hope/excitment” of using the whole page for information distribution! Using SVG somehow I think

I agree; in a sense, the SocialMapApril?2006 is sort of like that- it’s an “arbitrary” and “intuitive” map of relationships, that is nonetheless useful. In this respect, it is a MetaPhysics. We need to be aware, however, of the power of the map to alter reality: “The map is part of the territory.” – LionKimbro

14-Dec-2005: this pagename at ThoughtStorms:RefactoringTheOrganization?[1] brought up the intense conversation I had with two programmers I met at WikiSym, they were there for the co-conference OOPSLA. The younger of the two wanted to start a wiki for his IT dept. The older said it wouldn’t work, it too directly challanges the structure of corporations. It is to easy to ask questions in a wiki, and it can to easily be used as a punishment tool rather than what wiki are for.

Messages

Thanks folks, trying to get the hang of this stuff, while not doing it often enough for it to stick. with the SeoContest? stuff, I am trying to treat it somewhat like a ForestFire? and move all pages to SeoContest? and delink them. What do you all think? http://www.worldwidewiki.net/wiki/SeoContest

Also, I am embarrassed to say, I can’t find where to add my name in the UserPreferences?… a gentle push in the right direction would be appreciated. Maybe I figured it out, maybe I have a cookie issue? nope looks good. yea for me, now to get that damned picture shrunk down before pirahna

Lion, I think I either made the page on wards wiki for open space or I immediately contacted Micheal Herman at GlobalChicago? and had a two hour conversation (sound familiar! a few years ago. Yea I love the concept of OpenSpace, he is having a great 3-4 day work shop next week. Problem is it is $500 dollars. As for linking to RobertsRules, I will go ahead and put this over there. I just didn’t want to seem oppositional, only adding my experience to the mix. Cool?

“Instead, there’s some sort of weird TechnoConservatism? at play, something I can’t quite put my finger on. People want to not change how the technology works, even if the new idea is clearly much better!”

See: I’m really mad about this. So saying it’s a hassle: It’s just not what I said. And it feels creepy to me when I see that if I was really mad about something, and then it was changed to make it look like I wasn’t really mad about it.

Now: If the community has norms, and doesn’t want to see * i * * h on it’s pages, that’s toootally fine and cool with me. I can understand that. I’d just rather have it beep’ed out, rather than have everything arranged to make it look like I said something that I didn’t actually say. (Or, more importantly: Making it look like I felt something, that I didn’t really feel. That is: it made it look like mild annoyance, when actually: This is something that is really frustrating to me.)

The only time I’ll edit someone’s threadmode, is to link something. Even then, since links add meaning (LinkLanguage,) it makes me nervous.

Is substantive ThreadMode editing allowed here? I guess we should set some sort of policy on this (or have we already? I don’t really remember).

I’m in favor of rewording. Not just removing offensive language, but even for example rephrasing sentences to make them shorter or easier to read, or deleting parts of the post that are redundant and boring. But something like “(edited)” might be attached to the signature in these cases to mark it.

Practically, though, this would almost never happen even if allowed, so maybe it’s better not to allow it, and to just make more effort to absorb comments into DocumentMode? instead.

As for offensive language in particular, I think we should by default do just what MarkDilley did, i.e. replace it with nicer language when we notice it. By default, replace with something else rather than have it starred or “bleeped”. Starring or (bleep!) is okay though if that’s what the original author really wants.

Let’s not be too trigger happy with correcting language, though. I often edit thread mode (also on other wikis) to remove stuff that has been answered, to rephrase the question to match my answer, etc.

I agree Alex, not to get trigger happy with corrective language, but not to be afraid to do it either. For me, this is wiki, it doesn’t matter which mode. If the person (in this case Lion) doesn’t like the change, changing it back works. I just was reading along and said, “I would rather we didn’t use that word”, so I changed it, very publicly, not trying to sneak anything by anyone, or place words in anyones mouth. Just flaging a concern. It is wiki

Alex, I really like the OddwikiOrganisationImage!! I am not sure if I like the robot figure doing all the work, or the fact that the Wiki Administration is inserted into the brain. But overall it is fantastic!

Hm, like Lion, you don’t like the robot details… I must fix this. What I’m trying to say is that currently we don’t do much community work. We basically have everything scripted – no need to register before getting started, no need to ask for help before migrating away again. And the script gives us a “report” of what’s going on.

“We” control the script, which controls the infrastructure (the wiki and its features).

Perhaps the problem is that we would like to think of us as “supporting a community” but the fact is that we don’t do much. We enable people to help themselves, we don’t do any direct user-to-user helping at all.

Maybe we can split the robot into an army of little robots – one for every script or feature. Then the “migration bot” would be controlled by users, not administrators.

Hi Mark: I am preparing to use Skype and MoonEdit in tandem with the open source course managment system called Moodle. (Moodle has to be great as one of the Moodle tools for course presentation is a built-in wiki engine for incorporating one or more wikis as part of a course.)

I found MoonEdit while looking for tools that could be used in conjunction voice over the internet like Skype. I hope this edit works--if not I will have to find the docs and do some reading to get this right JohnDeBruyn

Not the right place maybe, but it was the only page on cw wikitorial was mentioned on. After it failed so greatly and they all noe think such doesn’t work we are preparing on an open letter to the LA Times. Ting36 today has it as a topic.

We’ve been using Gobby lately, actually, because, unlike MoonEdit, Gobby is OpenSource?. (Or perhaps FreeSoftware?; I’m not sure how they prefer to be lableled.)

Moodle is interesting; It feels like a GroupWare? package to me, rather than SocialSoftware.

Moodle seems to draw a line between administration and users. It seems to sort of hard code a relationship between the visitor, and the teacher. Or the visitor, and the moderator.

Perhaps this is a dividing ground between “GroupWare?” and “SocialSoftware.” E-mail doesn’t seem to have moderators. Wiki the same. I mean: They have people who perform policing. But the policing isn’t a HardSecurity? feature of the system.

When I imagine visiting Moodle sites, I feel like a visitor. It’s like something has been specially made and prepared for me. Not only do I feel this way because of the way other people would interact with me, but rather: I feel this way because of the way the software treats me. Human segregation: “Please give us some background information about you.” Machine segregation: Administration box in the corner. Can I post my own section entries? Probably not; The access to propose entries is enforced by software, not humans.

Well, anyways. I’m sure you’ve already heard these ideas before.

Software development approaches seem to go from two different angles:

Give everyone access to everything, and then restrict from there.

Give access to the administrator only, and then open up access from there.

Moodle strikes me as the 2nd, wiki as the 1st. Having worked in the 1st for so long, the 2nd just rubs me the wrong way.

WikiPedia seems like something that has worked towards an equilibrium, starting from open access to everything. I’m not sure of a good example from the other way around, maybe [[2ch?]] or something like that.

Not sure about the registration stuff, maybe go ask at Meatball? Both are good communities, probably should be one, somehow, in some way. I am a veteran wiki lurker for the most part. I have lots of stuff to say, but I am not so refined in the art of writing, or more importantly, the art of patience to write. I am really interested in WikiBeginners? and the culture around peoples access into this (meta this) community of wiki. errr ehhhmm how long have you had the wiki bug?

Mark … I’ve had the wiki bug for 5 years since doing a summer internship where a wiki was used to coordinate informal intern get-togethers across research labs in the Boston area. I have a rather enormous personal emacs-wiki.el wiki … I basically wrote my dissertation using a hybrid of emacs-wiki and LaTeX? modes. I look forward to exploring our shared interest in WikiBeginners? and the “wiki culture”. I’ve figure out how to register for WikiSym (thanks for the pointer). I lurked on WardsWiki? for years before making my first edit there

Hey Mark, here’s a guy BludgeoningTheData and trying to have his email (and other communications) public (Hear that, Lion?). Here’s his post about it at omidyar and my questions and his response. http://www.omidyar.net/user/u830082261/news/0 I’d be happy to talk more about it here, and if something interesting comes up, we could invite him here.

Mark, I was quite serious when I said: I’d like you to write about your “bringing in the new” theme. You’ve had something that you’ve been wanting to say an aweful lot, and you keep bringing it up. And I perceive that there’s something very important there. I just need to hear it. It doesn’t need to be eloquently expressed, or meet any sort of guidlines.

I have a thought I want to attach to it, to put a little into the mix: It occurs to me that, by making an invitation and joining program, you are taking on a karmic burden. Because: I would think that you would need to be confident that it was a good system, a stable system, a secure system, and ethical system, and so on, that you were pulling people into.

“All you need is to replace points with real units (e.g. +10 LPEs (leopold’s pint equivalents)), at which point recipients can probably be counted on to keep the score.” from Arbor Update comment stream

How do you provide the inexperience with the tools that allow them to participate without hand-holding and without disruption? Or with limited hand-holding and limited disruption? And if there needs to be handholding and disruption, how do we deal with that? [The question that occurs to me now, as I sit in this airport and type, is: Might disruption be something that is, at times, in some ways, desirable? Does disruption produce anything that’s valuable to the community? So that it’s not just something to be weathered or managed, but something to be wanted, even sought. And then my next question is: if there is such a thing as desirable disruption, what conditions make that possible? I’m not sure if my line of questioning makes sense or if it’s interesting to you, but it’s what I find myself wondering right now. I’m thinking again of teaching. There is such a thing as a too-docile student. You want a degree of resistance. But the right kind of resistance!

There is a debate in my mind abotu WysiwygWiki? vs. WikiSyntax. I think that WysiwygWiki? is good for the non-Wikiliterate. A choice is the best, I suppose (like MoinMoin?). Then again, WikiPedia requires syntax knowledge, and look at how many people edit and cotnribute to it… I think it goes to show that people will often learn a foreign technology regime if they are really interested in whatever activity is going on. But, I also don’t think that one can always rely on that for WikiFounding.

I don’t now a lot about Wiktionary as a project or set of processes. But, I am starting to learn about templates in wikis. And, it looks like http://www.omegawiki.org/OmegaWiki got fed up with the way the Wiktionary project was handling templates as the project grew. According to http://www.omegawiki.org/OmegaWiki it looks like there were too many sources for templates. So http://www.omegawiki.org/OmegaWiki is trying to be the “One True” source for Wiktionary templates. (“templates” being transcluded data that is part of a new page). That way, when they update or change a template, the change is universal, I guess.

See also: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata OmegaWiki? is the first project to try out the WikiData? scheme. Kind of like HansWobbe’s MicroBlocks?, in a way. I think eventually WikiMedia? will move all of certain types of data to this WikiData? format, if it works out. I like the idea on the surface…that you can update, and have that update apply to all of the places that include the content you are editing. As long as it’s desireable to have that type of action, anyway. From http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata :

Imagine that you can edit the content of an infobox on Wikipedia (e.g. Germany) with one click, that you get an edit form specific to the infobox you are editing, and that other Wikipedias automatically and immediately use the same content (unless it is specific to your locale).

Imagine that some data in an article can be automatically updated in the background, without any work from you - whether it is the development of a company stock, or the number of lines of code in an open source project.

Imagine that you can easily search wiki-databases on a variety of subjects, without knowing anything about wikis.

Some of those addresses give a “server not found”, but one of them gave this message:

Database error
A database query syntax error has occurred.
This may indicate a bug in the software.
The last attempted database query was:
<blockquote><tt>(SQL query hidden)</tt></blockquote>
from within function "<tt>MediaWikiBagOStuff::_doinsert</tt>".
MySQL returned error
"<tt>1044: Access denied for user: 'dbo205328734@%'
to database 'db205328734' (db913.perfora.net)</tt>".

This is why I want a fault-tolerant wiki. Is there any way to convert WikiIndex? into a more fault-tolerant wiki? You know, I should have done the WikiFeatures:FailSafeWiki thing a long time ago. It looks like CommunityRepository is one possible way to implement a fault-tolerant wiki.